Environmental Engineering Seed Grants for faculty available

The Environmental Engineering Program within the College of Engineering and Applied Science is offering seed grants to help with interdisciplinary research. The total amount of funding available is $100,000 and submissions are due by April 10. Applications must be co-submitted with a current member of the program faculty of the Environmental Engineering Program as the principal investigator and one or more non-EVEN program faculty from the broader University of Colorado system as co-principal investigator(s). Current EVEN affiliated faculty are eligible to be co-principal investigators. Applicants may submit one proposal as a funded principal or co-principal investigator. The goal for these grants is to generate results that support full-scale proposals to external funding agencies that highlight the benefits of faculty, staff, and student collaboration in the Environmental Engineering Program. Questions can be sent to Professor Joe Ryan (joseph.ryan@colorado.edu) via email.

Award Amount: $33,333
Award Duration: 7 months (June 1 to December 31, 2023)
Total Funding: $100,000
Funding Organization:   Environmental Engineering Program, College of Engineering and Applied Science

Program Description

Environmental Engineering Seed Grants are designed to stimulate interdisciplinary research on important and challenging environmental problems and solutions and to increase faculty participation in the Environmental Engineering Program in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.  The goal for these grants is to generate results that support full-scale proposals to external funding agencies that highlight the benefits of faculty, staff, and student collaboration in the Environmental Engineering Program.

Eligibility

Proposals for the Environmental Engineering Seed Grants must be co-submitted by a current program faculty member of the Environmental Engineering (EVEN) Program as the principal investigator and one or more non-EVEN faculty from the University of Colorado system as co-principal investigator(s).  Current EVEN affiliated faculty are eligible to be co-principal investigators.

Applicants may submit one proposal as a funded principal or co-principal investigator.  Applicants can participate in multiple proposals as unfunded investigators.

To fulfill the goal of providing these funds as seed grants, proposals assessed to have significant scientific or budgetary overlap with current research support of the applicants are not eligible.  Applicants assessed to have existing resources that could be used to fund their proposed project are not eligible.

Application Process

Budget and Duration.  The maximum budget request is $33,333 over the seven-month period of June 1 to December 31, 2023.  This funding amount was set based on an amount adequate to fund the stipend and tuition for a graduate research assistant for the seven-month duration of the project; other uses and distributions of the funds are allowed.  Principal and co-principal investigators may request funds for summer salary or course relief during the fall 2023 semester.  Funds may be requested for stipend or salary support of research personnel employed by the University of Colorado system.

Schedule.  The Environmental Engineering Seed Grants proposal process, review process, and funding will follow this schedule.  The schedule elements are explained below.

Proposal.  The required proposal format follows that used by the University of Colorado Boulder Graduate School’s Research and Innovation Seed Grants.  Proposals must be submitted as a single portable document format file (.pdf) with a file name including the principal investigator’s name in this format: LastnameEVENSeedGrant.pdf.  Here is the required proposal format:

• Project Plan (maximum length of three pages, 11-point Arial font, at least 0.5” margins): Address the following points in the project plan:
  • What is the environmental problem, why it is significant, and what is known about it,
  • What methods, materials, and facilities will be used to address the problem,
  • What results and outcomes are expected,
  • How these results and outcomes will be used to prepare and submit at least one major proposal to an external funding source (be specific about funding opportunity, source, team, and facilities), and
  • How the participation of the faculty co-principal investigator will benefit the Environmental Engineering Program.

Include a timeline showing delivery of required submissions regarding development of a full-scale proposal to an external funding agency.
The three-page limit includes all figures, tables, and references.

• Curricula vitae (two pages per vitae):  Provide two-page curricula vitae for the principal investigator and co-principal investigators.  Following the format of the National Science Foundation’s biosketch is recommended.
• Budget and Justification (maximum length of two pages):  Prepare a budget using the template required by the Research and Innovation Seed Grants.  Budget requests are expected to support student research assistants, postdoctoral research associates, and faculty summer salary (up to two weeks) or course buyouts to provide results and time to write at least one major external proposal.  Overhead and indirect costs are not allowed.  Include a detailed justification of the budget requested.

Project Requirements

The major goal of the Environmental Engineering Seed Grant is to create results and provide time for the development and submission of a full-scale proposal to an external funding agency.  The applicants must emphasize this goal in their proposal and pledge to achieve this goal.

If funded, the grant recipients must submit a brief progress report (200-300 words) at the 4-month point of their project (September 30, 2023) and a final report (1-2 pages) at the end of the project (December 31, 2023) addressing their progress toward submitting a full-scale proposal to an external funding agency.

No-cost extensions can be requested for three or six months from the EVEN Associate Director for Research.  Extensions will convert the final report into a progress report due on December 31, 2023, and add a requirement for a final report on the extension completion date. 

Review Process

The Environmental Engineering Seed Grant proposals will be reviewed by volunteers from the EVEN program faculty and the EVEN Associate Director for Research, with at least two reviewers for each proposal.  Faculty submitting proposals will likely be needed to review proposals.  Proposals will be evaluated in three primary areas of equal weight by the faculty reviewers using a 3-point scale for each area (3 excellent; 2 adequate; 1 inadequate; 0 not addressed). 

• Intellectual Merit (3 points):  Significance and novelty; soundness of approach; feasibility of budget and timeline.
• (3 points):  Synergy of collaboration; well-defined contributions.
• (3 points):  Prospect of leading to full-scale proposal to external funding agency; research assistant training and mentorship; co-principal investigator(s) contributions to EVEN program.

Using the reviewer scores, the EVEN Associate Director for Research will rank the proposals for the three funding spots.  A score of less than 2 out of 3 points in any area may be used to remove the proposal from consideration for funding.

Questions

Address questions to Prof. Joe Ryan (joseph.ryan@colorado.edu), Associate Director for Research for the Environmental Engineering Program.